


Les Amuse-Bouches

by Domenika Marzione (domarzione)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Iron Man (Movies), Iron Man - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Food, Friendship, Gen, Humor, state fairs, superhero foodies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-28
Updated: 2013-12-28
Packaged: 2018-01-06 12:12:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1106669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/domarzione/pseuds/Domenika%20Marzione
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve Rogers, his friends, and food. A pair of vignettes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Les Amuse-Bouches

**Author's Note:**

> As usual, the same versions of the characters from the [Freezer Burn series](http://archiveofourown.org/series/38432), but no knowledge of that is required or even suggested.

## One

"Do you know what this is?"

Steve looked up to see Tony holding something up by a pair of giant tweezers with rubberized tips, like you'd use for processing photos. (The Good Lord knew what Tony would use them for.) In the bright lights of the exquisitely designed kitchen, the object in question was sadly limp, vaguely puce, and glistening with slime. "Can I get a hint?"

It probably wasn't mineral, but he would be wild guessing if he had to choose between animal or vegetable. He'd always suspected that there had to be a reason sushi bars weren't well lit.

Tony gave Pepper a smug look. "Pollan's first rule of eating. Tell Marcel it's off the menu."

Pepper cocked an eyebrow back at Tony, who flung the still-unidentified (but apparently edible) item toward the trash. Well, in the general direction of the trash. But the trash had anti-gravity repulsors and radar and could probably make up the difference.

"You do realize that this works both ways, right?" she warned. Tony's smug grin dimmed just a little, as it should when Pepper had made it clear that she'd seen your best move and was not worried about topping it.

But then Marcel returned from the pantry with an armload of greens and cheese and a demand that they switch up their egg supplier because the quality was sinking so rapidly and Steve's tablet started beeping in a way that he did not understand and Tony had to come make stop and the point was never returned to, not when there were ham and leek quiches to eat while Tony had Jarvis bring up specs for sports cars because the new models were being debuted next month and Tony didn't want to wait.

(Pepper, normally firmly against Tony bringing entertainment to the table, would make exceptions for cars, especially fast cars. And Steve did not miss Tony silently marking which ones seemed to pique her interest most.)

It was well after Pepper had gotten her first speeding ticket on the Pacific Coast Highway in that shiny new custom Audi R8 ("Comfort matters, Steve. Also, I'm not trying to symbolically inflate the size of an organ I do not possess.") that the back half of that long-forgotten conversation took place. Although, once again, Steve didn't realize it at the time.

Tony was opening a box with a Tel Aviv postmark with the sort of gleeful noises that invariably meant tiny electronics were involved. The doo-dad, wrapped in plastic and smelling of peanut butter, was held up for Steve to make similar noises at, which he did not do because he did not know what it was and whether it went into a computer or a toaster or a toaster's computer or into the latest weapons platform for the Iron Man suit. Tony, oblivious to everything but what was wrapped in heavy-gauge plastic, did not mind.

Pepper leaned over and reached into the box and held up one of the packing peanuts. "Do you know what this is?" she asked Steve and Tony's attention snapped to her in a flash, panic on his face although Steve could not imagine why.

He saw Tony's face fall as he confirmed that it was a packing peanut, albeit not a white one.

"Pollan's first rule of eating," Pepper told Tony with a small smile. "They're off the menu."

Tony's response was to start stuffing the packing peanuts into his mouth, grab the box, and glare at Steve before bolting for his lab.

"Do I want to know what I just aided and abetted?" Steve asked carefully.

Pepper shrugged artlessly and sipped at her seltzer with lime. "He eats too much junk food," she offered, then smiled. "But mostly I was just reassuring him that messing with me is more dangerous to his health than sodium consumption."

Steve smiled back. "I'm pretty sure that's one of the few lessons that has truly penetrated."

  


* * *

## Two

Steve stared at the proffered stick. Clint shook it at him gently, not enough to dislodge what it was supporting, to indicate that he should take it.

"... why?" Steve finally got out, staring at the surprisingly uniform balls of fried dough on the stick. Behind Clint, a trio of pink balloons moved past, held by a child too small to see, and Steve thought that they looked remarkably similar to what Clint had been eating and what was now being held out to him so that he could do the same.

Clint sighed, disappointed. "Because you already turned down the deep-fried butter and I'm not letting you go home without trying anything more exotic on a stick than a corndog or some variety of potato."

Steve accepted the stick, but did not do anything with it.

He had been at Fort Hood when he'd gotten an email from Clint asking him if he'd wanted to come up to Dallas for the weekend and go to the Texas State Fair. He'd agreed mostly because he hadn't seen Clint in more than a month and Clint had sounded very excited by the prospect of going to the fair. He might have even come out to Texas for the fair itself, but Steve hadn't asked. His own experiences at State Fairs had been entirely limited to tour stops during his USO days -- such events didn't happen anywhere near New York City -- and he was curious what they would be like in the modern day and, especially, without him being an attraction himself.

As might have been expected with Clint's background, he was a masterful guide to the fair, explaining a few tricks on the arcade (and twice foiling rigged games to win little girls giant stuffed animals) and telling the odd tale of his own experiences, which Steve considered the best part because Clint doled out reminiscences like a miser did gold coins. They watched a pie eating contest and then a bronco-riding competition where all of the contestants were children, which Steve had originally raised his eyebrows at, but eventually realized that the kids were having fun and knew what they were doing and nobody was getting very hurt. They went through the children's petting zoo entirely because Clint said that Steve was a Brooklyn boy still mildly distressed by open fields of grass. Steve told him that he'd seen all of the livestock he'd cared to back in Europe during the war and open fields of grass distressed him for tactical reasons only.

But mostly they ate. Fresh fruits from the farmers' stalls, the top five entries in a chili contest, a church supper, the winning brisket from a barbecue contest, ice cream that had been churned in front of them, and a surprisingly broad array of fried food on sticks.

Including the deep-fried balls of Kool-Aid Clint had just handed him.

"Eat it before it gets cold," Clint encouraged. "There's nothing sadder than cold fried food."

Steve might have winced and braced for impact before biting down, but Clint said nothing.

"That is... ridiculously sweet," Steve managed to get out without choking once he'd swallowed. He looked around for the nearest place to get water. There was a lemonade stand off to the right and he started walking toward it.

"I know," Clint agreed happily, trailing behind. "I used to eat the powder dry when it came in MREs. This is so much better."

Steve asked the concessionaire if there was any lemonade without sugar, holding up the stick in silent explanation. He was handed water -- on the house -- because, the young lady explained, lemon juice and pink Kool-Aid together was just asking for trouble.

Clint reclaimed the rest of his snack and they moved on to the next adventure. Which might have involved potatoes and pulled pork. On a stick.

**Author's Note:**

> Pollan's first rule: "Don't eat anything your great grandmother wouldn't recognize as food." Which is baloney, as are most of Pollan's other pronouncements when used without context or moderation. 
> 
> The packing peanuts are [Bamba](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamba_%28snack%29).


End file.
